SIR DAVID ARCULUS (born 2 June 1946), is a British media figure,
businessman and advisor to Government who has appeared several times
in The Sunday Times Power 100, ranked at number 39 in 2005.

Educated at
Bromsgrove SchoolBromsgrove School (Wendron House) and Oriel College ,
University of OxfordUniversity of Oxford and the
London Business SchoolLondon Business School , he started his
career as a writer and was a producer for the
BBCBBC from 1968 to 1974.
He joined
EMAPEMAP in 1972, and took it from being a small regional
newspaper publisher to a large media group. He was involved in
launching many new magazines – for instance,
Smash HitsSmash Hits , a journal
that printed words to pop songs, which went from an initial
circulation of 10,000 to one million within a year, which provided the
cash which helped Emap to subsequently become a leader in the world of
business communications encompassing magazines, events, exhibitions
and data products.

As a result of these successes Arculus worked his way up to Group
Managing Director in 1989, leaving Emap in 1997. He subsequently
became Chief Operating Officer of
United News and Media and then
became Chairman of IPC Media which at the time was Britain’s largest
management buy-out. Arculus also headed
Earls CourtEarls Court and Olympia Ltd
and spent nearly ten years as a Non-Executive Director of Pearson plc.

Away from the media sector, he was a Non-Executive Director of Severn
Trent plc from 1996, serving as Chairman from 1998 until 2004. Arculus
held a range of further non-executive jobs of which perhaps the most
noteworthy was with
Barclays BankBarclays Bank plc from 1997 to 2006.

He joined the Board of O2 plc in 2003, and in 2006 as Chairman was
responsible with the management team for the sale of O2 to Telefónica
of Spain. At £18bn this was the largest cash deal ever done in
Europe, and the second biggest in the world. Following the 2006 merger
of O2 and Telefonica he sat on the Board of Telefonica. David has also
served as a Director of Barclays and Pearson and of a variety of
private equity backed companies and was Chairman of ExCeL Exhibition
Centre

During his career David has also undertaken a number of non-business
roles including four years (2002 to 2006) as Tony Blair’s "Red Tape
Czar" when he was Chairman of the British Government’s Better
Regulation Task Force. During this time he helped bring about a number
of regulatory initiatives intended to reduce burdens on business.
These included improved impact assessments; the introduction of common
commencement dates and the measurement of administrative burden in the
UK economy which led to government imposing a 25% red tape reduction
across all departments. He also led the effort during the UK
Presidency to reduce EU bureaucratic burdens which resulted in the
notable claim from MEPs that "the European Parliament now has nothing
to do".